On Tue, Nov 08, 2005 at 08:39:39PM +0100, Olive wrote: > >That's why you should offer an *equivalent* access to the sources in > >the *same* place. > > > >Any disagreements and comments are welcome. Remember I have the > >opinion that it is reasonable if you put the sources under a different > >place but with equivalent access (similar bandwidth and availability > >and such) or under some different protocols or formats as long as they > >are pretty standard and there are plenty of popular and free software > >available to get them. However, it's better to play safe and do not > >count with an author and a judge that do not agree with this. > > It seems indeed clear that if the source are available with standard > tools, this can be interpreted as equivalentg access. Interpreting > *equivalent* too striclty leads to absurd situations where everyone > violates the GPL; for example Debian distribute binary as .deb format; > in what format should they thus ditribute the source? It would be more > than absurd to requires that Debian ditribute source also in .deb > format. An ISO file is just a kind of archive that can be extracted with > very standard tools, just as tar.gz. > > Olive > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact > [EMAIL PROTECTED] >
I agree that offering access as tar.gz should be considered reasonable. And I would say it is pretty more acceptable than offering access through a SCM web browser. I would like to interpret GPL as in spirit and that would mean easy access to the sources, in my opinion. I just wouldn't agree that a mirror of Debian would not distribute sources of software that requires that, without making an offer to distribute the sources for at least three years. Pointing to Debian main repository should not be enough. Imagine Debian servers get down for any reason in the only day one could get the binaries and sources. -- Thadeu Cascardo
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